OVERALL ASSESSMENT
At this point, I’ve read more than 30 ASP.NET titles, and I get more and more cynical after finishing each one. Sure, one expects the authors to know their stuff when it comes to a given topic, in this case ASP.NET, but how effective are they at communicating this and providing relevant, timely, and practical code examples that demonstrate the .NET Framework’s capabilities? And in doing so, is it going to take 700 pages of redundant text that one can find in any other ASP.NET resource available online?

“Programming ASP.NET” by Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz is very succinct and very direct, very quickly yet still effectively explaining how ASP.NET works and how it does what it does. The book satisfies a growing concern from the .NET developer community, in displaying all of the code examples in both Visual Basic .NET and in C#, all compatible with ASP.NET V1. And while very thorough, the book manages to come out at a very healthy 900 pages, but true to form with O’Reilly’s library, still manages to physically be a good size for desktop companion. (I held this book in my lap while replicating many of the code examples, and it didn’t cause my legs to go numb, like with many other texts.)

I’d venture to say that “Programming ASP.NET” is one of the better titles out there on the market, behind only what’s heralded as THE definitive ASP.NET guide, Stephen Walther’s “ASP.NET Unleashed.” It’s that good. While not explicitly targeted towards the experienced developer, the book’s coding examples aren’t exactly geared towards someone picking up .NET for the first time. Thus, it’s perfectly suited for someone who owns several ASP.NET books and wants to expand their skill set further, as well as for the classic ASP developer looking to make the plunge into the next big thing.

I don’t normally use a ratings system, but if I did, this would have been 4.5 out of 5.

This book is a “must buy” for development enthusiasts. Let me tell you why.

WHAT I DO LIKE

• The fact that the code examples are provided for the reader in both VB.NET and C# is very helpful. A common strategy for book publishers these days is to only write in a single language, make the code cross-platform only off of the publisher’s Web site, or to sell two separate titles, one in each language. The availability of both is a welcome value-added change that caters to a broader audience.
• Great demonstrations are given of ASP.NET’s use of caching data, persisting session state, and configuration.
• While not high on everyone’s priority list, I appreciate the physical packaging of the book. It’s thick, but small, so it’s easier to carry around; making it resemble more of an almanac than the Los Angeles County Phonebook.
• The book makes examples available both in raw code (aka, the “Straight Outta Notepad” approach), and also from within Visual Studio .NET. This is another advantage which makes the book applicable to a wide range of developers.
• There’s a best practices approach to writing ASP.NET code implied throughout the book, such as using .NET’s StringBuilder object rather than repeated calls to Response.Write, improving the performance of Web apps. While the text doesn’t have a section dealing with best practices, the reader will gain an education in a better way to write code subconsciously.
• The book is beautifully written, intelligently arranged, and the proofreading throughout the text is outstanding. There are very few mistakes in the code, and grammatical snafus are rare-to-none.
• There’s a really great detailed section presented on the use of ASP.NET’s calendar control and how you can manipulate it in various ways. Arguably the most of the major ASP.NET titles out there.
• The XML Web service that is presented as a sample is very great...and a better demonstration of how to develop Web service, going beyond the “Hello world!” example so often seen (although that’s available, too).
   

WHAT I FEEL NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

• I felt the book could have spent a tad more time on ADO.NET. the majority of information was given appropriate attention, and the authors favored DataGrids, which is good, but a more comprehensive overview of all of the features and capabilities of database communications would have made this perfect.
• There wasn’t any information presented on .NET My Services or developing mobile content using the .NET Mobile Toolkit, which to the author’s defense can constitute entire books in themselves, and have lost their fervor since the initial Beta 2 buzz, but still are vital topics which deserve some mention in an understanding of ASP.NET.
• If 10,000 read this book, you’ll see 100 different suggestions for the ordering of the chapters, but I felt it did an overall adequate job. However, I personally would have preferred that the chapter on ASP.NET’s validation to be presented prior to the chapters on developing user controls, and for the chapter on tracing and debugging to come later in the text, being more logical to the mindset of typical Web development.